low calcium

[drd]

how do I get my calcium back up my calcium is to low I should be at 450 ppm but I am at 200 ppm and can not check alkalinity do to a problem with salfert kh tests and montrey park fish stores do not have any other test kits for alkalinity yet. here is my list of animals that are in the aquarium at the present.

24 lbs of lr
1 orange tree sponge
1 dwarf red leg hermit crab, 1 percula clown small
1 dwarf zebra hermit crab
1 turbo snail not frm Mexico
1 coral banded shrimp
1 black and red crab both pinchers are rounded
corals
1 2 head toadstool
1 orange and green to all orange plate coral
all the corals are open and eating But I know that I should be at 400 to 500 ppm of calcium
I added some ESV B-IONIC
Calcium buffer 5ml that will raise the calcium 16ppm per ml
the tank is a nanocube 24 that is cycled but is still not even a month old started on dec 27 , 2007 any ideas?
I know that I will be adding more calcium til i get to 425 ppm I would like to add more corals at a later time. But not till the aquarium is balanced again and I do 205 water changes once a week too. thank you

 

[mbbuna]

use this http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chem_calc3.html

 

[Avi]

That's a very useful link and I use it all the time to maintain the balance between calcium and alkalinity. Adjusting calcium should be done in conjunction with maintaining its balance with alkalinity so you really ought to get the alkalinity (sometimes labeled KH) test kit as soon as possible....There must be some place in the Los Angeles area that has one now. Salifert is a very good kit but for something like alkalinity you can use a more commercially available kit and those are very readily available in fish stores.

Use this for making the proper adjustments so that you can chose the calcium and alkalinity levels correctly once you're able to test:

http://www.reefnerds.com/ChemPlot/ChemPlot.html